Beige Book: Depression, Recession

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Federal_reserve_logo_2All districts showed weakness… weakening labor, weak exports, weak housing, commercial real estate declines, lower housing prices, weak retail, mining and energy down, wage pressure subdued, lower manufacturing…. You already know most of this.  This was prepared at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and based on information collected before November 24.

We have attached a excerpt below.

Overall economic activity weakened across all Federal Reserve Districtssince the last report. Districts generally reported decreases in retailsales, and vehicle sales were down significantly in most Districts.Tourism spending was subdued in a number of Districts. Reports on theservice sector were generally negative. Manufacturing activity declinedin most Districts, and new orders were soft. Nearly all Districtsreported weak housing markets characterized by reduced selling pricesand low, but stable, sales activity. Commercial real estate marketsdeclined in most Districts. Lending contracted, with many Districtsreporting reductions in residential, commercial and industrial lendingand tightening lending standards. Agricultural conditions were mixedwith a relatively good harvest but concerns about profitability. Miningand energy production and exploration started to soften due to loweroutput prices.

Here is a link to the full transcript.

Jon C. Ogg
December 3, 2008

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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